


FLASH COLLECTION

by Afueras



Category: Bandom, Placebo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:10:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 6,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5555465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afueras/pseuds/Afueras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a random assortment of flash fiction (min ~300 words) i've written through the past few years; some are from challenge-type things, while some are just fragments i never expanded and realistically don't intend to. completely random themes and eras.<br/>i'll try to date them in the notes for the ones on which i have info (really, they're all 2009-2014 and unedited... of questionable quality lmao). will update sporadically</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“C’mon, Stevie, just once.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Pretty please?”  
  
“Brian, no. And quit… _pouting_ at me. It won’t work. And you look like a drunken fish.”  
  
“I am certainly one of those two things, and I cannot swim.”  
  
Steve looked over at his friend, torn between annoyance and amusement. Brian was a weirdly articulate drunk, which usually made him hilarious to have about when he was pissed, but not when Steve was trying to get work done. “Go bother Stef.”  
  
“He left. He went away.”  
  
Steve glanced back in confusion. “No he didn’t.”  
  
“Yes he did. With his significant other.”  
  
“Significant other? What happened to boyfriend,” Steve asked distractedly, trying to remember whether Stefan had mentioned leaving the studio. There was paperwork to be done, and Brian was too busy lying on a table – with his head hanging off, looking at Steve upside-down – to be of any help. Steve had been counting on the Swede. “That fucker,” he muttered.  
  
“Fucker? Who’s a fucker? Stef’s boyfriend? You’re just jealous, aren’t you. Envious. You’re envious of Stef’s boyfriend because you actually want Stef for yourself and—” Steve clapped a hand over Brian’s mouth, who let out a happy gurgle from behind it.  
  
“Shut up. Seriously. Piss off.”  
  
“I am pissed,” Brian announced grandly, peeling Steve’s hand away.  
  
The drummer wiped his slobbery hand on his pants, disgusted.  
  
“Really though, please Stevie?”  
  
“Christ, Brian. No. Not now and not ever.”  
  
Brian went silent, looking at Steve with large blank eyes. Each was a sea of watery blue. Steve looked back down at his paperwork and tried to get back to work, concentrating on the small black letters and the rhythmic tapping of his pen against the table.  
  
“Steve?”  
  
Steve turned slowly, a threat visible in his glare. “What, Brian?”  
  
Brian thought for a minute before answering.  
  
“What did I want again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2013


	2. Chapter 2

The morning was colder than it had any right to be. Brian’s hair felt damp from the sheer chill, and the wind cut straight through his thin blouse. Mentally he cursed his eternal need to look pretty, then took it back. He really did need to look pretty.  
  
With an exaggerated sigh, Brian leaned against the sticky pay phone and read the scribbled bits of graffiti for the thousandth time.  
  
 _Who cares about David’s dick, or Becky’s number? Wait... me. I care about both of those things quite a lot._ A smile curled the corners of his painted lips.  
  
Why wouldn’t the damn thing just ring, already? Stefan had already kept him waiting for thirty minutes at that diner, only to send a message to meet him here, at this particular pay phone. Not even meet him in person! Brian huffed and shifted his feet, enjoying the squeaking of his new boots. The old ones had taken their last few steps last week, and Brian had been forced to walk barefoot to invest in more. It was embarrassing, not to mention cold. Steve had laughed at that for a long time.  
  
Steve. Gingerly, Brian fished in his pockets for Steve’s flask, before remembering the pockets had been too tight. He growled in frustration and circled the phone. Passerby were giving him disturbed looks - as though he were some kind of pay phone buzzard, circling so - but he really couldn’t care less. Silk was drafty and he never had gotten that promised dinner.

What sounded ominously like thunder rumbled in the distance, causing Brian's hair to stand up and his innards to curl in distaste. He resolved that if it rained now, and he was wet _and_ cold, he would never speak to Stefan again in his life.  
  
Just as the first misty drops started to fall the phone rang, and Brian snatched it up instantly.  
  
“It’s about damn time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2013


	3. Chapter 3

The scent of lilies is overwhelming.

Delicately Stefan places a hand over his mouth and nose, trying to block out the smell, but it creeps in. His mind is clouded, sunk in a trench of self-loathing, wishing he could take back his own words. Suck them back in like cigarette smoke all the way down to his guts where they could never, ever find their way out. 

He is living proof of how few words it takes to survive, but also of how few it takes to serve as weapons, when accurately placed.

The volume of the room turns down in his ears, the low chatter becoming a homogeneous hum as his eyes zero in on the couple he’s looking for, sitting huddled in a pew, their dark heads intimate in hushed conversation or tears. He can’t tell yet which one.

“Steve,” he murmurs, stepping into the pew and sitting down. The taller of the two stirs, turns to him slightly. Tears, then. Steve’s eyes are puffy and red. Brian, forehead against Steve’s shoulder, is shielded by his hair and doesn’t move.

Behind the three of them, a peal of laughter bursts into the air like bells, and everyone in the room looks up, jarred by the out-of-place noise – whoever the culprit is, they are hushed, and things resume as they were, but now Brian stirs. His translucent blue eyes fix on Stefan’s dark ones, and they stare at each other for a while, as Steve stares past the both of them into realms of empty space near the casket, which sits prominently a few rows down. 

Brian’s hand reaches out before Stefan notices, grabbing his and making him jump. He stiffly takes over from Steve and does his duty, letting Brian pry himself off the other’s body and turn to physical comfort in the form of the bassist. His childlike hands are clammy.

“I never dreamed…” he rasps, distant. “Stef he was so young…”

“I know,” the Swede whispers, cutting him off, not wanting to hear it and not wanting to think. Brian’s head dips, body shaking rhythmically with sobs. He doesn’t make a sound and Stefan doesn’t acknowledge it, just feeling his shoulder get wet, feeling icy inside and ill from the heavy perfume of flowers. He’s conscious of Steve looking at him, but ignores it.

As more people pile into the room the heavy, hot fragrance in the air increases, as does the noise, the pressure, the weight. Stefan feels choked, sick. Brian doesn’t help, heavy like some kind of albatross around his neck, the weight of his small frame and Stefan’s own sins threatening to drag him straight down through the floor.

Abruptly the Swede gets up. His motion dumps Brian back on Steve, causing the smaller man to gasp and whimper, Stefan’s disgust and sickness rising in response. Steve is ready to say something angry, but the service is beginning, and Stefan is striding down the murmuring aisle, hands in fists pulling at his collar.

Brian lies still on Steve’s chest, looking blearily to the front of the room, but the drummer’s sharp eyes are fixed on the rapidly closing door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2012


	4. Chapter 4

“Steve, give me a hand.”

Steve turned to find the source of the voice, knowing logically that it was Brian but not expecting him back for another week at the least.

“When did you get in, mate?”

“A few hours ago.” Brian’s voice was an exhausted rasp, his eyes bleary and darkened. His overcoat was ragged, and so was his usually-sleek hair. He lacked eye makeup. Steve stared.

“You look bloody awful.”

“Long flight. Have you got a cigarette?” Steve handed him a pack with a flourish, aiming for a smile but not receiving one. All he got was a blank look and the cold brush of fingers against his palm in passing.

“Where’s the girlfriend?” Brian asked through a plume of smoke. Steve hated when Brian called her that, and the smaller man knew it. Their eyes locked for a long moment before Steve reached over and reclaimed the pack from Brian’s limp hand.

“She’s away.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Steve raised his eyebrows, waiting to hear the rest. Whatever the derogatory remark might be, he was prepared. The more tired Brian was, the inevitably crankier he was, and it didn’t look like he had slept well in weeks. Even the second cigarette he had just plucked from the pack in Steve's hand and lit didn’t seem to be easing his restless agitation. Steve rolled his eyes.

“I was just asking.”

“Brian, you’re never just asking. With you, it’s never ‘just’ anything.”

Brian looked hurt for a moment, then dropped the façade, falling back into his blank expression. He shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am. So why were you asking about Cindy?”

Brian blew a smoke ring, and then another. “No reason. Just curious,” he said, enunciating each and every syllable.

Steve rolled his eyes again.

“Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2013


	5. Chapter 5

I watch from my seat in the corner of the room as Brian stares at himself in the mirror, getting an inch from his reflection and inspecting his face for signs of age. I don’t know why I’m so irritated by it; it’s a thing he does every day, and I’ve never done anything but laughed at it before.

Right now I’m just angry. I’m angry at his petite, hunched figure. I’m angry at his stupid mullet - chelsea cut, my ass - and his face that has no wrinkles, despite his conviction otherwise. I’m struck with a sudden desire to smash his face through the glass, and then to bury myself in his tight ass and –

No. Not going there. I’m not concerned about my sexuality in the slightest; everyone’s at least a bit... Brisexual. No, I’m concerned about the fact that so often now I have these urges to hurt one of my two best friends, and/or fuck him, and I don't know which is more dangerous.

As Brian inspects and I seethe, my other best friend enters the room and interrupts my train of thought with a characteristic gentle nod.

Brian must see Stefan come up behind him in the mirror, but doesn’t cease his prodding. I suppress a derisive snort, though I’m still not sure why.

Stefan leans down to wrap his arms tenderly around Brian’s chest, resting his chin on his shoulder. “Whatcha thinking, Bri?”

“Nothing,” Brian mumbles, and I’m almost surprised. Then he goes on. “I just feel old.”

Stefan kisses his cheek. “You don’t look old, baby.”

“I _feel_ it. You know, while we were off tour, I had to go to the doctor? For my knees. My _knees_ , Stefan.”

“Well, you tend to fling yourself down onto your knees a lot, sweetheart.”

“I know. I just didn’t feel it before.” Brian twists out of Stefan’s grasp and enters the bathroom, and I catch Stefan’s eye. He shrugs and lights a cigarette. He offers me one, but I decline. The glass of whiskey in my hand is good enough, for now. I nod as Stefan gives some vague excuse about calling his boyfriend and then leaves.

I can’t stop staring at the bathroom door.

Finally I get up with a sigh, most of my irrational anger ebbing with the lack of his presence, and move across the room to knock on the door. “Bri?”

“What?” Fuck, he’s been crying. His voice is thick and awful. Why couldn’t Stef have stayed just a little longer?

“Are you… okay?”

“Yes.”

I stand and wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. For once, he is dead silent, save for the occasional sniff I think I can make out. I shift my weight and the floor creaks. I hear him sigh, and then the click of the lock.

When I push the door open, I do a bit of a double take. Brian’s sitting there on the side of the tub in full makeup – plush eyelashes, ultra-pale skin – even that silvery violet lipstick he used to be so fond of. I didn’t know he even still possessed this stuff, much less carried it with him on tour. It was all flawless; I wondered how he had kept in practice over the years. This obviously wasn’t the first time.

It isn’t Brian, though. Not really. This figure in front of me looks like a goth Barbie doll with a bad haircut, and I don’t know if I have the heart to tell him. Judging by the slightly broken look in his eyes, he already knows. I take a seat on the toilet, trying to breathe through my nose. The last thing I need right now is to pop a boner at the thought of putting his head through a door, or something. It wouldn’t be the most disturbing thought I’d had.

“You wanna talk, Molks?”

He shakes his head, making no move to do anything about the makeup. We sit in silence for a long moment, each staring at our own laps, before he wrenches his head up suddenly and startles me from thinking about the dresses that used to go with that makeup. “Don’t tell Stef.”

I stare. His gaze is determined. Slowly, I nod, trying to put a question into my gaze, but he ignores it. Brian gets up and meticulously washes off the makeup, washes his hands, combs his fingers through the sides and back of his hair to flatten it. Then, he turns and leaves the bathroom. I hear the room door open and Stefan’s voice, with Brian’s in response. Stefan comes into the bathroom and gives me a puzzled look.

All I can do is walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12 january 2014. part of daily flash fic challenge for the month of january.


	6. Chapter 6

“Come on in. It feels great.”

“No, I’m good.”

“Come on!”

“Steve, I don’t want to.”

“Come on in, or I’ll come over there and pitch you in myself.”

“Don’t!” Brian sat up in alarm. He couldn’t tell whether Steve was teasing or not, but he was unwilling to take the chance. “Don’t you dare! Keep away from me!”

Grinning, Steve climbed out of the water and moved in Brian’s direction. The singer scrambled off the ground, squeaking in alarm, but it was too late. Steve had caught him around the waist and was dragging him inexorably toward the pool, undeterred by Brian’s frantic clawing.

“Steve I’m serious! Put me down! Stop, don’t –”

His next words were cut off by the sheer momentum of being thrown into the pool. Terror struck him along with the cold water, but his mouth was under the surface, so his shrieks came out as gurgles. His short limbs thrashed against the water. Brian’s mind was in complete panic mode, shocked and struggling, and he almost didn’t notice being grabbed under the arms and yanked back above the surface of the water, his head pillowed on Steve’s shoulder.

The singer coughed and spluttered, mascara stinging his eyes and water burning his lungs, trying to catch his breath against the taller man’s soaking hair. Steve’s hands rubbed up and down his back.

“Shit, Molks, why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim?”

“Embarrassing,” Brian managed to splutter.

“More so than this?”

“I didn’t think you’d actually throw me in.”

“Shit,” Steve repeated, still rubbing the back of the frail body in his arms. They bobbed gently in the water, waiting for the singer to recover. Finally he gave a sigh and nuzzled Steve’s neck, and with the Brian propped securely on his friend’s sturdy shoulders, the pair struck out for the side of the pool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from the very last month-of-flash-fic challenge i did, summer before last  
> 7 june 2014


	7. Chapter 7

The wind rattled against the green-tinted glass as I sat on the edge of the sink, scissors in hand. Music reached my ears faintly from the other parts of the house. Courtesy of Steve, I was guessing. Stefan would hate that rhythm. He must be out.

I looked down at my hands. Black nail varnish chipping off, knuckles bony and scraped, blue veins a visible map through the thin skin. They didn’t look like my hands at all. Feeling slightly nauseous, I fixed my gaze on the window again just as a particularly violent gust of wind rattled the entire house. I shuddered and watched as the first raindrops began to strike the glass. Who would want green glass? It was the hue of an old bottle, rimmed with a dingy white frame, set high in the wall as though the bathroom were a prison cell. Maybe it was.

This house wasn’t my first choice. It gave me the creeps, to be honest, but I didn’t have it in me to protest. Steve and Stefan thought it was a good place, and that was good enough. I didn’t really mind it most of the time. It was always either too cold or steaming with heat, and the pipes groaned in the night, but my bed was soft enough and the lack of traffic noise alone made a difference in how well I slept.

I knew that my bandmates were worried about me and my newfound apathy, but I couldn’t be bothered to put on much of a façade. That’s why they suggested all of us living together. A creative environment, they said, but I know it was for my benefit. I didn’t mind. I was just glad they cared.

The scissors in my hands were cold, and I couldn’t stop turning them over and over. I wasn’t brave enough to turn and face the mirror behind me yet, to confront my image, but I was determined in what I was going to do. My hair had been bothering me for a long time. The lank, frizzy bob had given way to these shorter curls, but it wasn’t enough. They itched with the memory of being pulled. I wanted them gone.

A door slammed downstairs. I knew I had to hurry, before Stefan came to check on me. I sighed. Thunder rolled in the distance, long and low, and the window cast green shadows over my face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> june 2, 2014 from june flash fic challenge


	8. Chapter 8

Brian stared vacantly down at the paper before him. Its lined yellow surface mocked his frustrated gaze. He didn’t want to write. He didn’t want to move, or think, or _breathe_ – but he especially didn’t want to write.

There was just nothing left. Every line that popped into his throbbing head was an achingly familiar variation on words he’d written before. Every hook and every riff was flat. Every subject was exhausted. He was exhausted.

There was writer’s block, and then there was _this_ , whatever this was. It wasn’t quite depression – he was medicated, and according to his doctors it was working. Not that he would know the difference. He supposed he felt better than he had in the past, but usually put it down to a clean lifestyle. It couldn’t be that he was just tired of music, could it? Was it possible to be tired of something that had dominated your entire life for so long? Maybe that was why he was having trouble: maybe he had run dry, so to speak. Empty. Nothing left.

That was a terrifying thought. That wouldn’t ever happen to him. He would be creative and brilliant forever. Brian Molko didn’t run out of things to say, not ever. Not until now.

Setting down the pen, Brian cradled his head in his hands, feeling uncomfortably close to tears. His back hurt, and all he wanted was to go have a nice long nap, or go for a walk outside, or do anything but what he had promised himself he would do. All he had to do was write a song, or at least the rough lyrics to one. At this point, even a single verse would do. All he had to do was what he’d spent the past eighteen years doing.

It just hadn’t ever been this hard.

After a long moment of weary deliberation, Brian lifted the pen again, and stared hard at the blank paper. What was it that Steve Hewitt told him, all those years ago when he first struggled with writing anything beyond passionately anti-church drivel?

_Be honest, just be really fucking honest and make it pretty later_. Slowly, almost reluctantly, his hand began to move on its own. It dragged across the paper in short strokes, forming boxy letters that didn’t look familiar at all, making two neat sentences, two steady rows of words:

_Whenever I was feeling wrong, I used to go and write a song from my heart.  
But now I feel I’ve lost my spark – no more glowing in the dark for my heart._

Brian sat back, reading what he had written, and sighed. Nothing to be excited about, but it was a start. The corners of his mouth lifted into a smile. It almost rhymed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jan 1, 2014, january flash fic challenge


	9. Chapter 9

It was a long hot July, filled with long hot promises, steeped in cold glances and regret.

Nothing was the same anymore, and Brian knew it. He knew it every time he looked in the mirror, and he knew it every time he went down the stairs and into the empty living room. The empty townhouse laughed at him, told him his insignificant mass did nothing to fill the empty rooms. And it was right. He rattled around like the last biscuit in the tin, looking out the windows, wishing someone would come back, wishing he hadn’t said the things he’d said. Those last irreparable words. That inescapable glance, that hot rain pouring down, as two thirds of the house’s contents were emptied.

Brian spent a lot of time looking out windows now. Pretending he wasn’t waiting for a little blue car to come back. Pretending he didn’t miss watching the driver struggle to parallel-park at the decrepit curb. Pretending he didn’t miss his two best friends, his long hair, his entire life. Everything he’d thrown out the window.

He’d thrown some other things out the windows, too. Once the house was two people lighter, and the icy calmness was done, Brian had made room for his rage. The rooms were trashed. The cold bedrooms were blank and destroyed. Everything was destroyed, and Brian felt none the better for it. When he had finished his fit, head thrown out the broken window, being dampened by hot rain, nothing was resolved. Things were the same; things were empty. That was all.

And now here he was, living in heat and filth, watching for things that didn’t exist anymore. If they aren’t near, they don’t exist. If they weren’t with him, they weren’t anywhere.

They were down at the pub, or off in the sky, or anywhere that wasn’t gone. They were here or nowhere. The house told him that. It told him that their places were saved, were bookmarked, that he just had to reach for them and he just had to delete his mistakes, just backspace, just take two steps back and breathe out. He liked to pretend things were the same. Walking through the wreckage like a queen. On the way to get his coffee every morning, black, just like he disliked it, breathing through his nose and waiting for the door to open.

But it didn’t. The sun beat hot upon his naked back through the window, sliding off his sweat, coloring the world in burnt and glassy gold, breathing down Brian’s sunburnt neck and telling him to wait. Just wait.

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jan 4 2014, january flash challenge


	10. Chapter 10

“Why do you not have any pictures up in your flat?”

“What?”

“Pictures. There aren’t any, of anybody,” Stefan answered thoughtfully, fondling the frame of a bland painting.

“Who the hell would I have pictures of? Not like I have children,” said Brian, distracted, not looking up from his laptop. Stefan watched him for a long moment.

“I don’t know. Us. Placebo,” he said. “Friends, family, somebody. Your parents even. Even just one or two. There’s nothing personal here.”

After a pause Brian dragged his gaze away from the screen, his mind still a million miles away. “What?”

“Nevermind,” Stefan sighed after a moment. “Want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

“I’ll help myself then,” the Swede muttered, as the sound of typing resumed.

In the kitchen as Stefan got a glass, filled it with ice, and brought it to the tap, his thoughts were elsewhere. Brian’s flat – he knew it perfectly, knew the location of every specific glass in the cabinet, the chipped ones and all – and Brian, sitting in the other room, but just as well in a different universe. Before he noticed, the water had run over the top of the glass and the spray was diverted onto the countertop, where a pool of water was spreading and beginning to drip onto the floor.

After another heavy sigh, he turned the knob to off and stood for a moment, watching the water drip, knowing he needed to get a towel but seemingly unable to move.

“Stefan?”

The bassist turned to see Brian in the doorway, looking both bewildered and tired, but more the former.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just wasn’t thinking. I’ll clean it up, I swear.” The two of them stared at the expanding puddle and Stefan waited for some kind of anger to emerge, or any response really – but nothing came.

“Brian?” he ventured, and the singer looked at him blankly. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes. You said you’d clean it up,” came the apathetic response. “But don’t bother. It’ll dry.”

Brian wandered out of the room, and Stefan looked for a long moment after him, feeling the wet puddle begin to reach his feet where he stood on the floor.

After a few seconds, the typing resumed.


	11. Chapter 11

“Excuse me,” Stef said lazily into the phone as he lay in the bath, “you’re busy doing what?”

“Cleaning.”

“Bri, you don’t clean,” he said, as though explaining the fact to a child.

“I am now.” Brian sounded distracted. There was background noise, shuffling of papers maybe, or the rustling of a cigarette packet. Or sheets, even – but that obviously wasn’t it.

“What’s going on with you?”

“I’m cleaning. I told you.”

Stefan paused, the edges of his mouth curling. “Who are you fucking?”

“Not you,” Brian snarled down the line, then hung up.

Stef blinked at the receiver, wondering at the sudden change in tone. Waiting for the phone to ring with the inevitable apology, and waiting for the equally inevitable explanation about med changes and sobriety and temper, but it didn’t come before his bath water turned cold.

It didn’t come at all, it turned out. Radio silence was all the Swede heard from his oldest friend, and worry slowly began to replace offense. Brian, for all his flaws, was more responsible these days. Nicer, too, and more accountable for his words and actions when he wasn’t nice. He should’ve called already.

Five years ago he would’ve stopped by with booze and takeaway as a nonverbal apology, and maybe some sex acts thrown in. These days, though, Stef didn’t even know what Brian’s flat looked like, and he was sure Brian hadn’t been in his in over a year. Phone calls and subdued apologies were what they knew these days. Meeting at coffee shops during breaks to discuss the future of the band. Distance and apathy – more Brian’s doing, Stef reasoned. It was good that he didn’t drink, but if he did maybe he wouldn’t be so standoffish and cold. Maybe he’d still come to parties and be fun. They might still have movie nights and sex – Stef’s current boyfriend was into threesomes, and had mentioned including Brian once. Stef had laughed so hard his stomach hurt. He couldn’t picture Brian having sex at all these days.

The phone rang, and the bassist scrambled for it on the counter, fumbling to pick it up.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“You’re alive then? Been sulking?”

“Something like that.” A heavy sigh echoed through the line. “Sorry Stef.”

Stef didn’t answer, making Brian wait, wanting to make him squirm a little. He deserved it for doing this so often, and feeling so free to make Stefan worry.

His plan backfired, though, when after about ten seconds he heard a click, and Brian hung up.


	12. Chapter 12

The faint orange glow of the empty auditorium burned his retinas as Brian listened to the others talking in the backstage area, talking and laughing, probably about him. He paced further to the edge of the stage, easing himself down into a sitting position on the edge before dropping to the ground. His hips and knees cried out. Another physical reminder he wasn’t twenty anymore.

Another reminder of the changing times was his current situation, looking for somewhere to smoke. Gone were the days of blowing smoke at No Smoking signs in the dressing rooms. Gone were the days of getting away with young stupid things. Here were the days of seeking secluded areas, watching for smoke detectors and workers, berating himself about quitting for money and health even though neither mattered much when he was being honest with himself. Here were the days of not even being missed or looked for, when a few years ago his absence from the midst of things would’ve sparked a frenzy. These days he retreated to the background of things, tried to keep his peace.

Sitting in a seat at the end of the third row, Brian lit his cigarette. He leaned back as far as he could, looking at the high ceiling. He could still hear the faint echoes of the others laughing.

Placebo’s equipment stood on stage, pushed back behind that of the opening band, ready to be moved forward into the light and used. Like him, he felt; here he was, sitting in the dark letting his cigarette burn down, listening and waiting. Waiting to be pushed forward and used for all he was worth, then being left alone to the dark again until the next performance.

Ashing his cigarette on the carpet and burning a hole in it, Brian stood up, still staring at the stage. Ugly feelings condensed in his chest, making it hard to breathe, making his hands shake with things he couldn’t name. Standing there, something in him asked what he really wanted – and all his burning mind could muster was _I don’t know._


	13. Chapter 13

“Bri?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you most afraid of?”

Brian dragged his attention away from his phone to look at the Swede, who lay draped over Brian’s couch with a forgotten book and a troubled stare into the middle distance. In the light of the table lamp his profile looked almost foreboding.

“Shit, I don’t know, Stef.”

“There’s got to be something.”

“I really don’t know,” Brian answered, staring at his friend.

“Come on,” Stef snapped, rolling to his side to face the singer. “There’s got to be something. Spiders, the dark, being alone.”

“No. I mean, flying,” Brian offered. “But you know that.”

 Stefan just stared at him hard – as though his dark eyes were searching for answers written on his forehead – until Brian sighed.

“Stef, you probably know better than I do what I’m afraid of. I don’t know why you’re asking,” he said, a pregnant silence ensuing as he cast about for a continuation. “What are you afraid of?”

Apparently this was the right question. Stefan’s stare broke and he buried his face in his hands, rubbing hard at his eyes as he rolled back over onto his back; he groaned, not answering, but the response was enough for Brian to grab on to. The singer put his phone aside and crossed the room to kneel in the floor by the bassist, ignoring the creaking of his knees as he lowered himself gingerly down.

Face level with Stef’s covered one, Brian coaxed his friend’s hands away to make eye contact.

“Do I get an answer?”

“What?”

“Are you going to tell me what you’re most afraid of?”

“Do you really care?”

Dropping Stef’s hands, Brian sat back on his heels, shocked and hurt. Instincts told him to leave, but he fought them down, knowing that was a phantom of his younger self talking. He would deal with this now.

“Of course,” he said after a moment, at a loss and not finding anything better to say. Stefan didn’t answer, just looked at him as though waiting for something else. He tried again. “Of course I do Stef, I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“You’re so cold,” the bassist whispered.

“What?”

“You’re so cold. You don’t look at me anymore.”

“Is that… what you’re most afraid of?” Brian asked, mystified. Wrong answer; Stefan turned away and closed like a flower at night away from him, a ball of anger or some other emotion churning, Brian couldn’t tell at all. Something about that, in and of itself, hurt.

He wanted to speak but his throat was closed and anyway he didn’t have any idea what he was supposed to say. Knees aching, he just sat and stared at the younger man’s back and wondered.

It took a moment for Brian to become aware that Stef was crying, and when he did, it failed to cut through the numbness that engulfed his brain and limbs.

“Stefan…”

“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t get it at all. You fucking idiot, you can’t see five feet in front of your goddamn face,” Stef choked, words like knives digging deeper and deeper into flesh that didn’t feel. He didn’t have to look behind him to see Brian’s lost expression, bewildered and borderlining painful, but not quite there yet. He sobbed. “You fucking idiot.”

Brian didn’t answer at all. After a long moment Stef turned, not sure what he would find, but he somehow was more crushed than surprised. Brian’s head was lowered and hair covered part of his face, but the visible part showed only a miserable confused expression – a puppy that has been kicked for no reason.

Stefan sat up, shoving him aside and struggling to tie his shoelaces through teary vision. A hand closed on his, stopping his frantic motions.

“Wait,” Brian mumbled, “Stefan…”

“No,” the Swede snapped blindly, shoving the hand away. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“What do you want to hear?” Brian’s voice was almost plaintive.

 _That you love me,_ part of him said, but he crushed it. “That you’re here. That you’re the same.”

“You… want me the same?” the singer asked heavily.

“Brian my biggest fear right now is the end of everything we’ve worked for over the past two decades of our fucking lives; it’s all so close to collapse and you know it even if you’re in denial. You think being distant and cold is growing up but all you’re doing by trying to kill off your image is killing off our relationship, the band, and yourself – and Brian, you scare me.”

“I scare you,” Brian repeated tonelessly, eyes fixed straight ahead on Stef’s knees from where he knelt in front of the couch. His hand still reached out slightly where it had stopped Stefan from tying his shoes.

“You do,” Stef whispered, leaning forward and grabbing Brian’s hand. “You do now, anyway.”

“You’re afraid for the future of the band. You’re afraid I’ll spoil it, you’re afraid I’ve already spoiled it and we’re turning into old failures?” Brian said wistfully, resting the side of his face against Stef’s knees, surprising them both.

“Yes, and I’m afraid for you too; Brian, what have you got outside of Placebo?”

“You,” the singer murmured. “Don’t I?”

“I guess.”

Stefan’s free hand found his way into Brian’s hair, combing through the strands as he’d done years ago, though now it was thick and clean.

“Brian I’m not… I don’t want to make you feel like… I’m not trying to say I don’t like you these days, that’s not what I meant, and I’m not saying I want nineties you back so much as just… I don’t know how to put it,” he trailed off, leaning down over his friend and smelling the shampoo and tobacco scent of his hair.

“I know,” Brian said.

“Then…”

“Then what?”

“Bri, what are we going to do?”

Brian didn’t answer.


	14. Chapter 14

With the slam of a car door Brian was left alone. His face was wet but his eyes felt dry as sand. The cab driver asked for a destination, but the singer didn’t hear him.

“Hey,” the man repeated, annoyed and knocking on the glass separator. “I said, where you headed?”

Brian looked back at him like he’d never seen a human being before.

 _Where am I headed?_ The thought pierced him like an arrow to the heart. Where was he headed? Where was there to go? Where was there to turn to now?

“The Somerset.” The hotel was no place to be, but his things were there. Midsentence he decided he didn’t care but the word _airport_ wouldn’t come unstuck from the roof of his mouth and the cabbie had already started the engine anyway. There was something decisive about it, Brian thought, the turning of that key. He was headed somewhere.

“You want me to wait?” the cabbie asked, bored, popping a bubble with his gum. Brian stared up at the hotel, trying vaguely to gauge which window was his.

“No.”

The stairs were endless, and by the time Brian hit the right floor his thighs were shaking from the effort and his lungs burnt for air. Too much smoking, he decided. Need to cut back.

The elevator was unthinkable. Brian never wanted to set foot in an elevator again for as long as he lived, or at least until his legs gave out. He couldn’t imagine the return trip on the stairs within the next thirty minutes, and he gave himself five minutes here at the max. He should’ve asked the cabbie to stay.

No doors opened up and down the hall, and the singer’s boots were soundless on the thick carpet. Pressing his ear to his door, he heard nothing, and entered like a ghost. His belongings were sparse. This tour was for getting rid of things. Cutting his hair, exorcising his demons, killing his muses. All one and the same.

As he crouched to zip his suitcase, the door opened behind him.


End file.
